The present invention relates to a device for loading and unloading X-ray film cassettes.
X-ray film cassette-loading-and-unloading devices of the type under discussion have a housing formed with a light-proof closable compartment which receives a cassette to be loaded with X-ray film sheets accommodated in stacks in film supply or dispensing magazines positioned one under the other in drawers or boxes of the device. Such a device further includes means for determining a format of the cassette being loaded, a control device for controlling the movement of the dispensing magazines, a device for removing film sheets from the dispensing magazines, and a device for transporting the film sheets from the dispensing magazines to the cassette.
Different versions of such loading and unloading devices have been known. In one of the version, the film dispensing magazines are opened in their drawers or compartments and the uppermost film sheet is lifted from the film stack in the respective magazine by a sucker positioned in the respective drawer and transmitted to the transport roller pair corresponding to that drawer. The transport plane of this roller pair extends parallel to the plane of the film stack in the dispensing magazine so that the film sheet being transported must be deflected. In the DE-PS No. 26 07 876, this deflection is carried out by a passage provided for each drawer or compartment accommodating a dispensing magazine. The manufacture of such passages is very expensive.
In further conventional devices, for example disclosed in DE-PS No. 32 32 148, such a deflection is performed by respective separate tracks of transport roller pairs. Thereby each deflection location represents danger that the film sheet being transported could be damaged.